The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 1, August, 1834Various
General
The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. I., No. 1, August, 1834
Various
American literature -- 19th century -- Periodicals
We shall conclude with one more passage, in which the man who filled so
large a space in the public eye--whose eloquence placed him on the
highest pedestal of fame, and whose writings have charmed by their
richness and beauty so many thousand readers--is exhibited in a light
more attractive and enduring than the highest human attainments are
able to bestow. Mr. Wirt looked far beyond the narrow bounds of earth
for his reward. He saw that neither wealth, nor power, nor fame, could
satisfy the immortal cravings of the mind--and he lifted up his
thoughtful eye to another and more permanent state of being.
"Lastly, he was a zealous and faithful christian. In such a mind as
his, so inquiring, so masterly, so discriminating, religion was the
child of his judgment, not the creation of his passion. It was an
earnest, abiding sense of truth, and showed itself in daily exercise
and constant acknowledgment. With the sublime system of revelation
resting ever in his thoughts, the christian law hung like a tablet upon
his breast, and duty ever pointed her finger to the sculptured commands
that were graven there to serve him as a manual of practice. He loved
old forms and old opinions, and, with something like a patriarch's
reverence, he headed his little family flock on their Sunday walks to
church: morning and evening he gathered them together, and on bended
knee, invoked his Father's blessing on his household; and at the daily
meal bowed his calm and prophet-like figure over the family repast, to
ask that grace of the Deity, on which his heart rested with its
liveliest hope, and to express that thankfulness which filled and
engrossed his soul. Such was this man in the retirement of his domestic
hearth, and thus did his affections, in that little precinct, bloom
with the daily increasing virtues of love of family, of friends, of his
country and of his God."
We hope that Mr. Kennedy's discourse will be extensively circulated and
read. We confess that we rose from its perusal much wiser, better, and
happier than before. It not only gave play to the imagination, but it
distilled precious dews of thought and feeling, the memory of which is
still delightful.
A LETTER TO HIS COUNTRYMEN. By J. Fenimore Cooper.--_New York: John
Wiley._ 1834.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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